iTunes music store downloads 50 million songs

Apple announced that music fans have purchased and downloaded over 50 million
songs from Apple’s iTunes Music Store, not including songs redeemed from the
currently-running Pepsi iTunes promotion. The 50 millionth song purchased was
"The Path of Thorns" by Sarah McLachlan. iTunes users are now
downloading 2.5 million songs per week, which is an annual run rate of 130
million songs per year.

"Crossing 50 million songs is a major milestone for iTunes and the
emerging digital music era," says Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. "With
over 50 million songs already downloaded and an additional 2.5 million songs
being downloaded every week, it’s increasingly difficult to imagine others
ever catching up with iTunes."

Apple is the only company to offer a complete solution for buying, managing
and listening to digital music anywhere with the unique combination of the
iTunes digital music jukebox software, the iTunes Music Store and the iPod and
iPod-Mini digital music players.

The iTunes Music Store offers Windows and Mac users the industry’s largest
online music catalog of over 5,00,000 songs, industry-leading personal use
rights and uniform 99 cents-per-song pricing. With exclusive tracks from more
than 150 artists, the iTunes Music Store offers music from all five major music
companies and over 300 independent music labels.

CI NEWS BUREAU